Purpose
by Frawley
Summary: Buffy's thoughts while on patrol with Spike, pondering everything that's changed within her since her return, which in turn leads her to question the Vampire about why he fights alongside her...


Title: Purpose  
Author: Frawley  
Date: 4th December 2001.   
  
Category: Vignette - Sort Of.  
Spoilers: Everything up to "Wrecked" is fair game.  
  
Summary: Buffy's thoughts while on patrol with Spike, pondering everything that's changed within her since her return, which in turn leads her to question the Vampire about why he fights alongside her...  
  
Comments: It started off as a ramble but suddenly had dialogue. Sometime later I decided I wanted to divide it into three parts, so that's what we have here. It moves from Buffy's private thoughts to what she can question aloud... who knows if it's any good (I certainly don't!).  
  
Disclaimer: Joss owns most of it, I lay claim to the scraps. FOX can sod off.  
  
PURPOSE - by Frawley  
--------------------  
  
Train of Thought:   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It really hadn't been different from any other night. Surroundings unsettling yet comforting all the while, if only because in seeing them, she was given the reassurance of routine. Where she was, and why - there was purpose. She had purpose. Even if she lacked feeling.  
  
Purpose in this place at least, amongst row upon row of lost lovers, friends, family. To her, lost neighbors - only it was somewhat different, that.  
  
Bad Buffy. Dangerous train of thought. Apt to derail and result in a massive fireball expanding outwards to a cacophonous soundtrack like no other.  
  
Still, her mind was a whirlwind, and even in her head she managed to pull off a convincing impression of a scolding schoolteacher.  
  
Bad Buffy. Bad.  
  
Don't let it in. Dig down, bury it deeper where no one can find it.  
  
The admonishing voice failed her in its final choice of words.  
  
Besides, she had gone that route. Tried to. Only there'd been a slight change in plans. One red-faced demon - who looked suspiciously like a cartoon devil on a box of Red Hots - had shown up, and she made like a snitch and sang for all to hear. Literally. Sang her heart out, and with it her secrets. Everything she didn't want anyone to know - especially her friends. She'd been in heaven, they'd ripped her out. Then she sang to another demon. Pale-faced yet possessing more emotion than that devil-in-training ever could.  
  
Disaster averted, for now.  
  
A talk with Xander - that was definitely needed. Punctuated with a swift kick in the ass for summoning Sweet. The only problem was Xander seemed unable to look at her unless it was about the lightest of subjects. Anything deemed serious and he stared at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at her. She supposed it was understandable. She wished she was saddened by that, knew she should be. Especially knowing that he loved her. They all did. And they were hurting, because she was. But she couldn't be, couldn't find a drop of pity or remorse or despair even.  
  
Hurt was pretty much all she could feel, and even then it couldn't be called feeling, for it was numb - the dull throb that accompanied a hangover. It had throbbed ever since she had returned, clawing her way to the surface for air. Whenever she should have felt something, it was there - even as she combusted before the eyes of the demon Sweet and her friends.  
  
Until he'd broken in. Then, the numbness succumbed to real emotion, if only for a moment.  
  
Give me something to sing about.  
  
He did. And she had. Just when she'd thought she had nothing left, not a single lyric, he'd given her something. Peroxide pest. She should have known it would be him. The moment she'd been willing to bow out of the show, he gave her a reason to stay. His love wasn't that far different from his hate.  
  
She'd sang. Not in front of her friends, not all of it, thank God. She'd only let a bit slip, to them. Not all of it - but enough to devastate Willow. Yet not enough to convince Giles to remain. Funny, but maybe it said more about them than her. She wished it could have been the reverse though. Buffy had always known that Giles was strong, but that Will was weak - it gave her the  
wiggins.  
  
You came back wrong. Yeah, well apparently she wasn't the only one.  
  
Wait... no. Don't go there either.  
  
Back to the singing.  
  
More, in front of him. More truth. More secrets.  
  
And something, left inside, she was allowed to keep from all of them. Only that one secret was the one she most wished she could rid herself of.  
  
Geez, serious much Buff?  
  
Not the schoolteacher this time. Xander. One night only, straight from inside the mind of the Slayer.  
  
She should be grateful for that. More often than not, it was Spike's voice who whispered the hidden truths inside her, just as he did live and in person. Well, in person.  
  
  
Detour:  
~~~~~~~  
  
It was Spike she was watching now, as he cast frantic shadows in the moonlight across the cemetery yard. It was Spike against whom she guarded.  
  
With crosses and garlic. And oh, what a spectacular failure that was. She'd worn denial like a gown, only it hadn't fit - it was tight and binding and she couldn't breath, and it wasn't him she was guarding against, really, but herself. All her best intentions couldn't change it. She knew it.  
  
She'd failed. With flying colors. She'd let him in. He was right. Annoyingly so, as per usual. She was afraid to wonder what else he was right about.  
  
Only, she knew the answer to that as well. He was in her. In her system. She did crave him, and it had started long before he'd had the nerve to say it aloud. Not during the marathon of wanton desire and mind-blowing sex staged in the midst of a collapsing building. It had grown inside her, long before. Before the songs. Before...  
  
He was in her somehow, and she didn't know why. That was the one secret she hadn't sung. Like Spike, there was a traitor beneath her breast, and because of it, amidst the sea of numbness that enveloped her, she felt - something. Something, for him.  
  
She didn't know if it was love. Didn't think so.  
  
It wasn't hate - she was well versed in the act of hating William the Bloody. How do I hate thee, let me count the ways. The blond vampire having tried to kill her and her friends on numerous occasions helped lengthen that list. His smug grin. That he was never wrong. Still...  
  
Not hate, not love. Yet.  
  
She lashed out in defense against it. Struck with words and fists. Hid behind a transparent veil of garlic and crosses. Terrified that he would be right about it, again. Terrified that she felt anything at all for him other than revulsion. That she could feel for a soulless vampire.  
  
Killer.  
  
And now, on this night, which really was no different from dozens of others - where she patrolled one of the many cemeteries in Sunnydale (for which they really ought to start printing off tourist maps) - she watched his shadows dancing as he fought. He moved fluidly between tombstones, battling two of his brethren. Buffy stared as he slipped behind a strikingly well dressed, newly risen vampire (nice burial suit, maroon, but tasteful, she noted) - and snapped its neck. He left it lying on the ground, yellow eyes morphing back to pale green and peering out from under dusty brown hair with a look swimming in fear.  
  
Even newly risen, it must have known it was dust. Hence the fear.  
  
Duster flapping in the wind, Spike swung a fist across into the face of the second vamp as he dropped the first. Fluid motion. The second foe - who, in Buffy's opinion, lacking a spiffy suit, was much less noteworthy - fell back, and Spike pulled a vicious looking dagger from the sleeve of his coat. Six inch blade - that couldn't be comfortable.  
  
Hauling the paralyzed but still conscious vampire to its feet, standing behind it with legs spread, he drew steel across flesh. A thin trial of blood was left from the sizeable gash that opened.  
  
Instincts ever present, and scanning quickly from left to right out of the corner of her eye, it dawned on her that the second vampire was frozen in place also, transfixed as she was on the action in front of them.  
  
So they both watched as one undead hand, nails painted black, then another, tore into the cut. And pulled. In opposite directions.  
  
Hard.  
  
Head separated from neck with a sickening crunch, combined with a squelching sound as tendons, muscle, tissue, skin - whatever, best not to think of it, Buffy - tore away. Bone was the last to give, spine cracking...  
  
The familiar sigh.  
  
Then dust.  
  
The other vampire had seen more than enough. It turned tail and fled. She didn't have the heart (or the stomach, at the moment) to follow.  
  
  
Arrival:  
~~~~~~~~  
  
Over ten minutes passed before either of them spoke. Neither had said a word since before the... encounter.  
  
He'd lit a smoke in the meantime, and they simply walked, side by side. His hands were still bloody.  
  
It was Spike who broke the silence first.  
  
"Thanks for the offer of help back there, luv. Nice of you to jump in."   
  
Smug. But not so much as usual. He was, Buffy realized, toned down somewhat tonight. Except for the...  
  
She was sorry she'd seen it. Not for the violence - she was sure she'd pulled off a similar move once or twice herself. Sorry instead because of what it led her to ask.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because, pet" was his response, and did she really expect anything else? It was so... Spike. Actually, it was so anybody - no way Xander would have missed that opportunity, she doubted she would have passed it up herself.   
  
Buffy wanted to run with that, slip into some witty, snarky banter, but she couldn't.   
  
"Why do you kill them?"  
  
"Vampires?" he inquired, staring at her as if it was the most obvious question in the world, and she responded the only way she could - she rolled her eyes.  
  
At least it was keeping the mood light. Somewhat.  
  
His face softened.  
  
"You. Why else? Don't get me wrong - I love a good brawl, nothing like a bit of rough and tumble-"  
  
She rolled her eyes again at this, but he didn't push it and Buffy let him continue.  
  
"tis what you want, isn't it? Or at least it's what you do. Why do it alone?"  
  
Good question. But that wasn't really what she'd been getting at.  
  
"I do it because it's my deal." She always felt funny calling it a job, so she went with deal. "These are my cards, I play the hand I was dealt. And it's not kittens on the line - it's people. Living, breathing people, with families and friends and..." She trailed off. Did she know any of these people? A few, perhaps... did it matter? It occurred to her that it didn't. It was her job, as much as she liked to avoid that word. Screw deal. Her job, and the people - she didn't really care about them. In the end, there was nothing else she could do. Lives saved were a bonus, but she hadn't actually cared since... since she came back.  
  
Before that, she remembered, she had.  
  
"And I do it for love."  
  
At least he was honest.  
  
"That doesn't strike you as selfish?" She had to press it.  
  
"Yeah, it does. So what? You want me to tell you I care, 'bout a billion strangers I'd just as soon never see, or snack on? I don't. News flash, Slayer, neither do that many others. Not really. They mill about, like ants, pay their taxes, flip burgers or stock shelves or write bloody poetry all the while oblivious to most of what goes on around them. And to most of the pain that accompanies it. Then like ants a bunch of 'em get stepped on, and the rest go about their business without giving it a second thought."  
  
He took a drag off his cigarette, the ember at its core glowing a fiery red. She wanted to argue with him, but couldn't. He wasn't entirely right, but he wasn't exactly wrong, either.  
  
"So my reasons are selfish, so be it. I slaughter my own kind, and there's a sick dimension to it - I'll live with that as well. I'm not asking forgiveness or seeking redemption here. I know what drives me."  
  
He stepped closer to her, and she felt her body begin its betrayal.  
  
"You drive me." He started straight into her eyes. Quickly she dropped hers, silently cursing him for being able to do this to her, but her heart wasn't in it.   
  
"It's one more reason those ants out there are lucky to have you."  
  
Looking back up, Buffy stared at him. She'd been doing that a lot lately, but only when he wasn't looking. Now... for once, she was content. For the time being.  
  
Maybe the reasons didn't matter any more. It was enough to just finish the task. She felt... something, for Spike, if for no one else, not even those she was called upon to protect. If something could grow from that... if it could help heal her... she'd find her fire again eventually. The reasons, her purpose, would be waiting for her. She'd have something to sing about. 


End file.
